On the 29th of April our sharks packed their little backpacks and left their little town, however, this time not to compete for the crown unfortunately. Instead we made our way to Enschede to participate in the Batavieren race. For everyone that is not familiar with it, this race is a relay run of 172km from Nijmegen to Enschede. It is the biggest relay in Europe and afterwards everyone parties together, which results in the biggest student party of Europe. So this is definitely an event that we would not like to miss, even though it means we need to leave our natural habitat.
Friday evening, we started our journey to Enschede and the night shift was already on their way to Nijmegen so our lovely swim coordinator would be ready on time to be the first runner of our Tiburon Turbo Team. Together with the other people of the morning shift they ran their way through the night, while the rest was busy on the camp site building tents up and down, trying to catch some sleep before it was time for the morning shift to leave.
Early at 4:00 in the morning they got ready to leave for their shift. Luckily, we had some Nightwatch drinks with us to wake us up and get us ready for the race at such an early time. Everything went smoothly (we may have hit one or the other pole with our van) and we were ready for the last shift to start the race.
In the meantime the cheerleaders and night shift have started to get ready for the party in the evening and already found some nice places to enjoy their drinks. Later on, everyone went to the track at the University of Twente and we saw runners running the final meters of the race. As per tradition a lot of teams tried to show off the best outfits, which is always one of the biggest highlights of the race.
After that it was time for some pizza and we were ready to party. Even after running all day, we showed that we can not just swim and run but also dance all night long! We proved that by showing our best dance moves in at the amazing party. Late at night everyone returned home to their tents and slept as much as they could before heading home to Maastricht again on Sunday.
Overall, it was a great weekend with lots of fun but little sleep. However, thanks to our sponsor Nightwatch, we were energized and could manage to run all the way from Nijmegen to Enschede. Do you also want your Nightwatch drink? Then use our code #Tiburon for a discount!